


what the future holds

by Notfye



Category: Alice by Heart - Sheik/Sater/Sater & Nelson
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, idk what year it is but the war is over
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:41:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24947824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notfye/pseuds/Notfye
Summary: It’s very simple, really.
Relationships: Alice Spencer/Alfred Hallam
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	what the future holds

**Author's Note:**

> consider it an apology for all the angst I posted earlier this week

It’s very simple, really. 

Alice writes books. Alfred goes to medical school. They go to the courthouse, they buy a cottage. It’s the natural progression of things. 

The house has land that surrounds it; it’s Alice’s favorite part. Wildflowers grow there in the summer, poppies and bluebells and cornflowers, and little bluebirds sweep down between the grasses. In the morning, the fog hangs low, and the pines at the edge of their property look like ghostly sentinels. 

They’re sitting on their old wood porch. Alfred lays with his head in her lap, eyes closed against the sun. She runs a hand through his hair. They are both still young but their lives have been hard, and light strands of gray spring near his temples. 

It’s autumn, but the early sort, when the heat has broken but the days are still warm. That morning, Alice had woken up and opened all their windows in dawn’s half-light, even if it was really too cold for it. There are only so many crisp days left; she’s determined to keep them. And then, didn’t the cool air just make it better to slip back into the warmth of her husband’s arms? In his half-sleep, he’d bent his head against hers and murmured, “Is it time to get up?”

“Soon, but not yet.” 

Eventually, Alfred does always go to his office, and she goes to hers, tucked away in their house, small and cozy and terribly messy. There’s a desk, and an old leather chair they picked out together from a secondhand shop. It was meant for the living room but it made its way here, instead. In the mornings, she writes, and in the afternoons, she edits. They have a garden that she tends to midday, it’s a symptom of the fixation they both have on food, now. Never again will they go without it. 

Often, when the weather is not so bad as to deter her, Alfred will come home to see her curled on the wicker couch, reading an old paperback. He’ll settle beside her, press a kiss to her cheek, and make some comment, about the day, about a book, about the sweater of his that she’s wearing. 

“ _ Persuasion  _ again?” 

“I like Austen. Do you want me to read aloud?” 

“ ‘Course.” And he’ll listen a while, leaning against her. Sometimes, like today, he’ll shift down and settle in her lap. She knows then that he’s tired but doesn’t want to say anything. It’s a stalemate: Alice won’t insist he get some rest if he never says he needs it.

She gave up on reading aloud a while ago, when his breathing evened. Sometimes it’s nice to just sit and listen to him breathe; It’s a habit from a different time, when she used to be able to hear his breath catch a half second before he sprung into a coughing fit. What a luxury it is to hear breath without labor. 

Alice will wake him, when the dark forces them inside and the cool night air settles around them. But for now, the sky is bright and the day is peaceful. In this moment, that’s the most important thing in the world. 


End file.
